Cheap Thrills (6 Thrilling reads)

by Luis Samways

  ‘What do you suggest I do then Mrs Jones?’

  She looks at the broom closet behind the man’s back and smiles.

  ‘There seems to be a nice little room just behind you where we can hash things out…what do you say?’

  The man looks behind him and smiles. He looks around intently to see if anyone can see him. He sees no one and decides to take the young lady up on her offer. He jangles around his pockets and pulls out a ring of keys. The ladies eyes widen as he finds the broom closet key and unlocks the door. He opens the door and invites her in with his hands. She smiles at him.

  ‘You first,’ she says

  He smiles and turns his back on her and steps into the closet. Before the man can turn around, the young lady has a silenced pistol pulled out from behind her back. Within seconds she’s fired two shots into the back of the guy’s head. He collapses onto the assortment of cleaning agents and crashes onto the floor, knocking brooms and buckets everywhere. She grabs at the keys that are still in his hand and closes the door. She looks around and makes her way to the morgue, opening the door and opening fire on the people inside the room.

  Ten

  Donner is still on her shift at the hospital. It’s been one of those days, and the day seems to be getting longer. The influx of patients into the hospital is still at its highest in recent memory. She finds herself taking a quick break. She’s outside in the parking lot with a few other hospital workers taking a smoking break. She knows it’s bad for her, but today she’s found herself inhaling the nicotine stick. She doesn’t usually smoke, but some fourteen hour shifts take its toll on her, and she always felt like she needed something to even her keel. She doesn’t drink, so she thought why not smoke. She sees the devastation that smoking causes on a daily basis, but that’s after twenty to thirty years of smoking minimal. She only has a few a day, so what’s the worst that could happen?

  Some of her colleagues spot her and walk over. It’s her supervisor Tim and his entourage of slutty nurses that seem to follow him everywhere, like vultures nibbling on a dead carcass, she feels these women do the same to the doctors. They sleep their way to success so to speak, fucking every doctor they can get, hoping these favours will advance them in their careers. Donner isn’t one of them, and she’s proud of that fact. She has gotten to where she is today because of hard work, not dick sucking contests.

  The smug bastard reaches her along with his posse of adoring work colleagues.

  ‘Hey Donner, what are you doing out here?’

  Donner forces a smile.

  ‘Just smoking a cigarette, I’m on my break Tim’

  ‘Smoking will kill you, you know that right?’

  ‘So will working fourteen hour shifts for seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year, but you don’t see me quitting work do you?’ She says with a visible tone of distain in her voice.

  Tim smiles, as do the nurses beside him.

  ‘True. Well I hate to break up your off time but there is a backlog of patients that need to be seen. I need my best people on this, hence why I need you to stub that cigarette out and join me in the ER,’ Tim says as he gives Donner a smile.

  She knows what he is up to but decides to play along. It’s not every day that Tim actually recognises her for her talents in the work place, and not just because he wants to have sex with her. She obliges and flicks the cigarette onto the floor, extinguishing it with her shoe. She follows him and the nurses into the entrance of the hospital to be met by a wave of people in the waiting room, each one of them looking as if they are inches from death’s door.

  ‘Fuck,’ she says out loud, not realising she had done so.

  ‘I know right, you would have thought there is some sort of plague going around,’ says Tim

  ‘Something isn’t right here, we need to find out what’s going on,’ Donner says

  ‘No shit, that’s why I need you, I need you to dig around and help us establish what’s going on’

  Donner nods her head as she walks away from Tim feeling overwhelmed but finally with some purpose.

  Eleven

  Ray has been lying face down on his floor now for a few hours. He’s just regained consciousness and realises where he is. He slowly gets up and grabs at his head in pain. He feels much like he has a hangover. He hasn’t been drinking though; he doesn’t even drink, so that’s out of the question. Why does he feel like this? Why is he in so much pain? Surly this can’t be normal, and he’s right, it isn’t normal at all. He aimlessly doddles around his compact open plan apartment, looking for answers in the tiniest places. He looks in the fridge and spots a chilled bottle of water. He grabs it and opens it. He necks the bottle like he hadn’t had a drink in three days. The thirst he is feeling is unreal. He has never been this thirsty in his entire life. He can remember times in his life where he should have been thirstier than he is now, but realises that he wasn’t. Like that time he went to Nevada to go “Alien spotting”, which for a time was his most favourite activity. When he went Alien spotting in Nevada, the temperatures reached eighty five degrees plus. It was like an oven, and even then he didn’t feel as thirsty as he does now. The truth is something is wrong. His balance feels off. His senses feel as if they are firing off at every possible level. His hearing is coming in and out, and his head feels like it’s filled with air. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His dark skin looks pale. He isn’t white, so there should be no reason for him looking Caucasian. He spots a glimpse of a poster on his wall that he got from an underground shelter convention he went to last summer.

  “When shit hits the fan, don’t hang around, go underground” it read, with a picture of a cartoon mole wearing a hard hat, giving the reader a wink.

  He smiles at the poster, and starts feeling a tad bit more normal.

  He goes to his apartment window and looks outside. He is shocked to see what he does see. Suddenly his hearing resurfaces to the sound of sirens and a blaze of fire that seems to be engulfing the apartments opposite his. He sees a few people running on the street below; all of them have the same thing in common. They are all looking at their arms in a panic. He doesn’t quite know what is going on, or why people are running around in a panic. Sure the fire in the building across the road is dangerous and warrants a panicked response, but these people are more concerned with themselves then the fire, seeing a few of them are actually running into the building that’s alit! He spots a man scream in terror as the man looks at his right arm. At first, Ray thinks the man’s arm is on fire, but at closer inspection he can see some sort of flashing light pulsating in the man’s arm. It’s blinking violently, much like the light you would see on a piece of C4 in a Steven Segal movie. Ray starts to feel uneasy as he begins to recognise that everyone on the street below who are panicking, are all panicking because of the same reason. Each and every single one of them has the same blinking red light in their arm. Each one of them is running for shelter, as if they saw what happens when the blinking stops. And then a few of them stop dead in their tracks. Ray is astonished to see what happens next. Two men scream in pain as a huge flash of light engulfs their body’s simultaneously. A silhouette of their bodies are seen through the light, and then nothing but a loud popping sound and a misty dust ball of body parts and blood cascade the area in which the two men were standing in a few seconds before. After that, the remaining men and women on the street below suffer the same fate, like a choir of violence that saturates the sidewalk and evaporates the people below. Pools of blood remain as a deadly silence surrounds the street.

  Ray’s heart pounds at what he has just seen. An everlasting thirst grips at his throat as his arm starts to feel warm. He quickly glances at his right arm that feels ablaze and gasps at what he sees. The blinking dot that he has just seen on the ill-fated people below has made its way onto his arm. The blinking had started slow but with every single second that passed, it grew quicker in its rate. Ray looks down at the empty street below and realises that the same th
ing is about to happen to him. He has no time to digest what is happening. He just turns around and looks at the poster of the cartoon mole on the wall. He quickly understands what he needs to do. He rushes over to his workspace and grabs his laptop. He grabs the power unit and a network dongle. He shoves the laptop and dongle into a rucksack. He quickly goes to the fridge and grabs some water and food, shoving it into the big rucksack as well. Before more than a minute has passed, he is out of his apartment door. He isn’t even aware of the blinking light anymore. He needs to get to where he knows he needs to be. Even if the blinking light in his wrist is flashing violently as he does so.

  Twelve

  ‘Mrs Angela Novik, you are being arrested under the suspicion of murdering your Husband, Mr Brian Novik and then discarding of evidence through hydrofluoric acid. You are also being charged with the murders of three morgue technician’s and two security guards. You have the right to a lawyer, if you cannot afford one, one will be provided to you by the state of New York,’ says the police officer as he cuffs Mrs Novik.

  ‘What? I don’t understand,’ she says as a stream of tears run down her face ‘My husband was dumped on my front yard this morning. I haven’t seen him in ten years. How could I have murdered him?’

  ‘That’s for the courts to decide Mrs Novik. We are taking you downtown,’ the police officer says

  He escorts her outside and they are met by a sea of police officers. She is rushed through the crowd of officers and put into the back of a cruiser. The door is shut hard and she if left in silence in the back of the police car. The strong smell of leather and the cold breeze of the AC unit hits her like a ton of bricks. She starts to sob uncontrollably as she sees a team of lab coat crime scene investigators enter her house.

  The two officers that remanded her are keeping an eye on her outside the car. One of them turns around to the other with a look of confusion in his face.

  ‘Man, I’ve seen plenty of scumbag murderers in my time, but that lady is something different. Not one ounce of regret on her face. She actually looks as if she thinks she’s innocent!’

  The other officer laughs.

  ‘They all look like that at the start Mickey, then you take them downtown, and they open up like can of beans on a cowboy ranch. CCTV doesn’t lie’

  ‘I guess you’re right. I didn’t think we were going to get here in time. Downtown is like a circus today,’ he says

  ‘Yeah, there’s some sort of virus going around. My friend at the Hospital tells me there has been a few hundred people in today complaining about a beacon’

  The other officer looks confused

  ‘A beacon? What do you mean?’

  ‘A bunch of crackpots have gone in to the hospital complaining about seeing a beacon in their arm, like some sort of homing device. They are adamant it’s flashing and when they show the doctors, they can’t see it. Fucking crazy shit man’

  ‘What do you think it could be?’

  ‘Fuck knows man; this town is full of whack jobs. We could be looking at some sort of group of hippies taking mass amount of drugs and tripping out. That’s what the hospital is putting it down to’

  ‘But a hundred of them? All of them complaining about the same thing? Surly that in its self needs an explanation’

  The man laughs

  ‘I’m not a doctor so I wouldn’t know, but I tell you what, ever since that guy blew himself up yesterday in that posh restaurant, it looks as if the city has gone mad!’

  ‘He didn’t blow himself up. People said he spontaneously combusted!’

  ‘My ass he did. That’s all just a myth. No one has ever spontaneously combusted. I don’t care what you’ve heard!’

  The two officers laugh it off and carry on with their work.

  Thirteen

  ‘So it’s taken care of then?’ Mr Conway says as he bites down on his cigar and lights it up.

  Mrs Harriet stands there with a smile on her face. She knows it’s over and she is proud of her creativity on this particular assignment.

  ‘Yes sir. His wife is being pinned for his murder. We have planted some evidence in his corpse before we took the acid to his head to make it look like she wanted to cover his murder up. We also killed a few guards and morgue workers to make sure she rots’

  Mr Conway looks impressed.

  ‘So the CCTV dub of her worked then?’

  ‘Yep, we got our new technician to dupe a static image of her and render it into the CCTV footage of Mrs Jones. What we got was her at the scene of the crime. They don’t have the technology to figure out it’s a fake and the media will be far too focused on her and the slayings in the morgue that they will forget about what’s really happening’

  Mr Conway smiles.

  ‘I must say Mrs Harriet, I am impressed. Well done. It looks as if disciplinary action will not be taken against you. You have earned back your seat at this table. Well done once again,’ Mr Conway says as he takes another hard pull on his Cuban cigar.

  ‘It’s nothing sir. I’m just doing what my country needs me to do’

  ‘Yes…Yes you are’

  Mrs Harriet smiles a wide specked grin as she bows her head in respect and makes her way to the door.

  ‘Before I forget Mrs Harriet, what’s your take on this spontaneous combustion angle the press and authorities are taking on our work?’

  She turns around and laughs.

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t of put it better myself. It’s a good thing they think that. Helps us continue our work.’

  ‘I thought you would say that. I myself want everyone to know what we are doing, but that will come in time. For now let them think people are self-combusting all over the place…for now anyway’

  Fourteen

  ‘So you’re telling me you know nothing Mrs Novik? You just ended up on the CCTV footage? You didn’t kill any of those people? And you certainly didn’t disfigure your dead husband’s corpse with hydrochloric acid? I find that terribly hard to believe, and I certainly find it incredibly fictional,’ the detective says as he bends over the interrogation table and looks Mrs Novik square in the eyes.

  She remains still, unmoved by the harsh words of the interviewing detective, yet an evident sadness is present in her eyes. It’s a sadness that engulfs her spirit and makes the world seem colourless. She’s still struggling with the grief of her husband being dead after all these years of pointless hope. A hope in which she thought that maybe one day she would see him again. That hope was shattered today, when her husband’s corpse was dumped on her lawn after ten years of him being missing. In those ten years she never thought that her husband was dead. She figured he faked his own death considering the suicide letter he left her with the anonymous corpse that was believed to be him. She knows he’s dead now, and the fact that the authorities are blaming her for his death is nothing short of torture in her eyes. She loved her husband…she loves her husband.

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about. I was at home, I swear!’ she screams in a fit of rage, a rage that is born from circumstances, circumstances in which she finds herself in at that very moment in time. She can’t go to prison for the murder of her husband. She just can’t!

  ‘In my eyes Mrs Novik, I see a desperate woman. A woman with no remorse. The type of woman who would not only take the life of her husband but also take the lives of three morgue workers, all in the name of protecting your tracks and getting away with murder. That to me Mrs Novik strikes me as cold,’ the detective snarls as he sits down across from her, tapping his fingers on the cold interrogation room’s table. Each tap of his finger seems to be echoing off the walls as his voice grows deeper and deeper in tone. Mrs Novik’s mind is racing at the thought of her future. Will she be able to convince them that they have the wrong person?

  ‘Honestly, I swear on my children’s lives, I did not kill my husband. I’ll take a lie detector test for God’s sake, just let me prove my innocence,’ she cries

  The detective smiles a cold smile, one peppe
red with distain.

  ‘You don’t need to prove anything Mrs Novik, I think you have proven enough already’

  Fifteen

  Ray is running through the empty street he once lived on. His apartment block is in the distance behind him as he rushes through the now near deserted street. A few cars remain parked near the sidewalk. A quick thought of him breaking into a car and getting out of the city pops into his head. He decides against it and continues. He runs past a group of people arguing who seem to be in just as much of a panic as him. All of them are showing the same symptoms as Ray. A blinking red light on each of their right arms. Ray doesn’t stop, he continues to run. No one on the street pays much attention to Ray; they seem to be more preoccupied with themselves. Ray is preoccupied too, but he seems to be amazed at the lack of attention anyone is paying to him. Usually the people of New York will stare a hole into you, but today that seems to be far from the truth.

  He continues to run unopposed by the loitering men and women on the street. Not one person has asked him for help, which he is glad for seeing he is only interested in going underground. The constant thought of him escaping is the driving force behind the energy is he feeling. Not too long ago he felt sluggish and non-coherent, but at this moment in time he feels as if he has a new lease of life, a new found drive. Seeing people blow up and self-combust around him has made him eager to go underground. He figures that he will be safe underground. He stops dead in the middle of the street. A quiet soothing wind falls across his back as the blackness of the night reflects off his skin. He swivels his head around, trying to catch his baring’s. He remembers that the metro is a good two miles from this street. He’s certain that he won’t make it that far, not with the flashing light in his arm. The two men that combusted near his apartment earlier had a similar rate of flashing on their arms, so Ray gathers that maybe it’s best if he finds an alternative location underground. Retrospectively the metro is a good idea. It will be lit and have various supply rooms where Ray can gather tools for his survival. It will also have vending machines that may be stocked with food and beverages. But he knows that if he stays outside any longer, he could die. If it isn’t the flashing light in his wrist that gets him, it could be the people on the streets. Who knows what a man could do when in fear of his life. People have killed for a lot less.